I think three to four movies per week will be a good pace for me to keep this year. It's enough for me to watch a lot of great movies, but also not so much that I overwhelm myself, get burned out on movies and then not watch any for months. Yay!
Silent Movie (1976): I'm shocked that this movie has such a low score on IMDb (a 6.4). It's not The Producers, Young Frankenstein or Blazing Saddles, sure, but it's not much less funny than any of those three, either. This movie is a hilarious tribute to the wonderful, crazy style of silent comedies from way back when. To paraphrase Roger Ebert in his review of the movie, you can tell in each frame that everyone involved had a great time making Silent Movie. There are a ton of inspired jokes, and while the story is pretty light, it's a lot of fun. Maybe I just like this more than most people since I have a soft spot for the "throw a ton of gags at the wall and see what sticks" approach shared by movies like Airplane! but hey. I think this is a no-brainer watch for Mel Brooks fans, and anyone who has, you know, a sense of humor.
The African Queen (1951): This movie is a lot more loose and fun than I expected. Humphrey Bogart plays a guy that is right at home for him: A boozy, slightly dirty sailor who talks tough but is also a bit of a coward. Katharine Hepburn is great, too; I love the irony of such a bold, outgoing woman -- and an atheist to boot -- playing a woman who is, at least initially, a prim, proper Christian missionary. But as the movie develops, she's shown to be much stronger than she appears. She's actually the most badass missionary I can remember seeing in a movie. I'm kind of surprised that The African Queen was so widely beloved at the time of release; it's pretty suggestive, especially regarding the relationship between Charlie (Bogart) and Rosie (Hepburn). I guess star power and some good adventure will allow you to get away with some things, even with a puritanical content code in place, haha.
Departures (2008): A beautiful movie that won the Oscar for best foreign film last year. It's about a cellist, Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki) who has had a slightly rough adulthood -- he has a kind, supportive wife, Mika (Ryoko Hirosue), but it has taken him a long time to get a job with an orchestra, and almost as soon as he finally gets work, the orchestra is disbanded. Thus, Daigo moves back to his hometown to find work, and in a newspaper he sees an ad for "assisting departures". What he does not know is that the "departures" are a last ritual of sorts to see off the dead and prepare them for the afterlife and give their families a sense of closure.
Part of what I love about the movie is that it is so delicately made and has a great respect for the dead, but at the same time it is not afraid to be light in tone at the right moments. Death brings forth many emotions for the living -- sadness, hatred, love, happiness at the memories left behind, and complex mixtures of those emotions and others. In many ways, the tone of the movie is like the departing ritual itself: Daigo's boss (Tsutomu Yamazaki) treats every person he prepares with tenderness and affection, which allows most families to see the deceased at their best and be left with the memories of what they love most about that person. People on the outside view Daigo and his boss with scorn because they work with the dead, and there are some hangups about it not being "proper work", but once they see how these two do their work, they usually come around.
One last thing I want to comment on is the title: This movie is exactly what it says on the tin -- it's about not just the final departure of the dead, but also departures of people, items, dreams and anything else, and how those who are left behind deal with those departures. The actual departure ritual is said to facilitate a passing from one world to the next and to provide a fresh start for the dead in the wake of the departure. But the departures provide a fresh start for the people left behind, as well, although these "fresh starts" are not always good.
If anyone here has a chance to see this (I know Miss A has already), then definitely give it a shot. It might be my favorite movie from 2008 now, although I'd have to give that a bit more thought.
On the queue for this week: Moon (2009), whatever I want to watch on my DVR.
Total Movies: 6 (The Taking of Pelham 123, The Station Agent, The Final Destination, Silent Movie, The African Queen, Departures)
